Fuck.
There is a rooster crowing.
But as for the rest of it. He looked about the bedroom.
No catsuit. No whip. No Ceci.
But that feral taste still lingered.
Chapter Sixteen
Clarke
Clarke sighed as he trudged reluctantly through the snow toward the front door. At least someone had shoveled a path to it.
He wouldn’t be here if not for three things: the snowstorm, Steven’s tractor, and Ceci Rivers’s aunt.
He still didn’t know how her aunt had gotten him to accept her invitation. Not to mention how she’d gotten his number. He tried to get out of it; he’d saidno thank youmore than once, but somehow at some point that no had turned into a yes. He wasn’t even sure he’d ever voiced it. After that, it was only a matter of her telling him what time he would be coming over.
He knocked on the door. After a moment, it swung open.
Clarke couldn’t say which opened wider, the door or Ceci’s eyes as she stared back at him. She was wearing jeans and a bulky sweater, but all he could see was that catsuit as his eyes drifted down. Inch by unbearably slow inch.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Shouldn’t you be out over the Atlantic by now? Or better yet—in it?”
He drew a deep breath. He would do his best to remain civil. But he’d also have to rid himself of that image in his dream. He wondered whether he’d gotten all the slopes, curves and other things right, as his eyes drifted to her crotch.
He blinked.
Stop.
“My flight got canceled because of the storm,” he heard himself saying.
“Okay, but what are you doing here, here?”
She looked down at Holly and her eyes softened, flashing a flicker of blue. But when she shifted her gaze back to him, it disappeared and those gray clouds grew dark and stormy.
That’s not a good thing, right? I shouldn’t like it.
He clenched his hands and told himself he didn’t.
You don’t like it. You don’t like it. You don’t like it.
So why can’t you convince your body not to like it?
“Can we come in? It’s too cold for Holly out here.”
She stepped aside, allowing them to enter. Once inside, he knelt next to Holly and removed her leash. Glancing up at Ceci, he had a sudden recollection of kneeling before her in his dream. He’d told himself not to go back to sleep after she’d cracked that whip. He’d tried to stay awake, but at some point he’d drifted off. And things got worse. Or better. Depending on your perspective. He’d gotten down on his knees before her while she’d remained standing—a wild and fierce cat—looming over him and looking down at him. He felt his cheeks burn.
“I have to take off her booties,” he stammered, removing them from Holly’s paws and placing them on the floor next to the door.
Why the fuck are you explaining yourself to her?
“You can join Boudica by the fire,” Ceci said, smiling at Holly.
But Boudica had already sensed she was here and came bounding toward them, greeting both Clarke and Holly. After that, the two dogs scampered into the living room.
Clarke looked around, at any point within his field of vision, so long as that point excluded her. The credenza to his left, on it, an empty vase, and a bowl with some keys in it. To his right, a cast-iron umbrella stand—no umbrella. There wasn’t anywhere else his eyes could go in such a small and confined spot. A dust bunny in one corner gave him only a moment’s respite before he began to feel claustrophobic.
